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Savannah Council approves update to Short Term Vacation Rental Ordinance

The number of permitted short term vacation rentals in Savannah will soon have a limit in parts of the city after the City Council unanimously approved an update to the existing Short Term Vacation Rental ordinance.

Savannah Council approves update to Short Term Vacation Rental Ordinance

The number of permitted short term vacation rentals in Savannah will soon have a limit in parts of the city after the City Council unanimously approved an update to the existing Short Term Vacation Rental ordinance.

The number of permitted short term vacation rentals in Savannah will soon have a limit in parts of the city after the City Council unanimously approved an update to the existing Short Term Vacation Rental ordinance.

On Thursday, the Savannah City Council approved the update to the ordinance, which caps the permitted short term vacation rentals in different neighborhoods in the Historic Downtown District and Victorian District at 20 percent.

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“We have a resident population in the heart of Downtown Savannah. That’s unusual and if we’re not very careful with the way we do tourism here, we’re going to destroy that,” said Alderman Bill Durrence of the 2nd District of Savannah.

After several stakeholder meetings over the last several months, Alderman Durrence proposed on Thursday to count all current short term vacation rentals against the cap in the ordinance, as opposed to the original language of the ordinance, which would have not counted current owner-occupied properties against the cap. Rental company representatives overwhelmingly opposed this proposal at Thursday's City Council meeting.

However, Alderman Durrence says this decision is indeed taking the will of residents into account.

“There’s another stakeholder who hasn’t really spoken out much in this and it’s the property owner who is doing this. The rental companies certainly wanted there to be more possible units. If I were a property owner I wouldn’t want that,” said Alderman Durrence.

“What we’re trying to do and what the residents have wanted is some protection to maintain a sense of a neighborhood.”

City officials say the ordinance creates a new system where people can register as having an owner-occupied property, which would then not count against the cap. However, city officials say having an owner-occupied property is less in value than having a non-owner-occupied property and many people would be motivated not to claim this status.

Under the amended ordinance, there will be about 40 fewer short term vacation rental permits available in the Historic Downtown and Victorian Districts to start out.

Right now there are more than 900 short term vacation rental permits in effect in Savannah, with about 100 pending.